This day we remember an artist friend who passed through our narrow walls almost 6 years ago. Condolences to Damian Le Bas and to your family for voicing out a life journey that touched many of us. All the love to Delaine & Damian James and friends Ivo & Marita who introduced us.

In 1995 Latvian artist Kristaps Gelzis fenced a patch of land in Töölö bay for ARS 95 exhibition. He marked the area with a dedicated text sign: ‘ECO YARD 2000 - 100m2 of land protected from urbanisation.’ The land was issued to remain intact until 2000. Public land development project finally destroyed the site in 2013. In 2016 Petri Saarikko rediscovered the sign in Switzerland.

Australian artists Sonia Leber and David Chesworth discuss their research-based film, sound and installation practice.

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth are known for their distinctive installation artworks, using video, sound, architecture, and public participation. Developed through expansive research in places undergoing social change, Leber and Chesworth’s works are speculative and archaeological, responding to architectural, social, and technological settings.

Sonia and David are currently HIAP studio residents, creating a new project from a three month residency, supported by the Australia Council.

Their highly detailed, conceptual videoworks emerge from the real, but exist significantly in the realm of the imaginary, enveloping the viewer in cycles of experiential and evaluative contemplation.

‘Zaum Tractor’ (2013) presents notions of freedom and collectivity within Russia’s socio-political environment. ‘One from Mosta, Two from Żabbar’ (2015) reveals a ritualised form of public argument, improvised in working-class bars in Malta. The archaeological and speculative ‘We Are Printers Too’ (2013) emerges from a vacant, purpose-built building that once produced the daily news. ‘This Is Before We Disappear From View’ (2014/2016) enacts the changing philosophies of discipline and border control.